Bitcoin Forum

Crypto trading volumes in India have plummeted following the new tax law entering into force. The new rules impose a 30% flat tax on crypto income and do not allow losses to be offset against gains.

The new crypto tax rules entered into force on April 1 after the country’s parliament approved Finance Bill 2022. A flat tax of 30% now applies to crypto income with no deductions or loss offsets allowed.

On April 1, crypto exchanges in India began seeing sharp declines in trading volumes. Aditya Singh, who runs the Youtube channel “Crypto India,” posted screenshots on Twitter showing a sharp decline in trading volume at four major cryptocurrency exchanges in India: Coindcx, Bitbns, Zebpay, and Wazirx.

“This is just the start of the decline of such a great ecosystem that we had in India,” Twitter user Shivam Chhuneja commented. “Our government must think about taxation rules that bolster the industry and their tax revenue at the same time. Many people earn their living form crypto trading.”

India’s finance ministry explained in Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, last week that “no deduction in respect of any expenditure (other than cost of acquisition) or allowance is allowed.” Furthermore, losses from crypto transactions cannot be offset against gains.

Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO of crypto trading platform Coinswitch, commented:

"A flat 30% tax that does not differentiate short-term capital gains from long-term gains, with no provision for deducting expenses incurred or offsetting losses is not in tune with the tax framework for other asset classes and is discriminatory."

Crypto supporters in India have petitioned on Change.org for the government to introduce reasonable crypto tax policies. At the time of writing, the petition has garnered more than 103K signers.

On July 1, another damaging tax provision will come into effect. A 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) will be imposed on crypto transactions. An Indian parliament member recently explained why this is detrimental to the crypto industry.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/indias-crypto-trading-volume-plummets-as-new-tax-rules-enter-into-force

This is just the beginning! In coming months there will be zero volume on many exchanges. The government has driven the community to an extent where people will now use illegal means to cash out. When that happens the government would be helpless in controling such situation and generating tax revenue from the cryptocurrency market.

So far I don't see a lot of effect of this thing on the daily volumes of WazirX, if you see the highest volume pair that is the BTC/USDT, there was a sharp selling volume on the 31st when the provision was to come into effect, but after that since last two days volumes have been pretty much decent, here is the image of the BTC USDT pair chart

https://i.imgur.com/OqKWvGz.png

 and I see volumes in March even more than what we were having around Feb end and march beginning, Also the INR/USDT pair is trading at a premium as compared to dollar which too is a sign that the Indian market isn't dried up so far. Let's see what happens in coming days especially after the TDS provision kicks in which looks really draconion.

There will sharp decline in coming days for sure

No one is that rich to make multiple trades and keep feeding the government

There might be some artificial trades done by exchanges to show a robust picture. Many traders as i know have stopped trading at KYC / centralized exchanges and are looking for way outs to cash out the cryptos

As mentioned in the earlier posts dont be surprised to see lower volumes if the law is not amended immediately

It wouldn't go down to zero but will definitely reduce. The startups created around crypto ecosystem will also reduce. It will also accelerate the great India brain drain regime that we are currently experiencing. Also it will encourage people to take illegal routes to cash out their cryptos.

I believe that's what the government wants especcially when RBI governor is very much pushing towards a blanket ban.

But who cares when incompetent people chairing the highest positions within finance ministry.

We will know surely in the next three months where the volume is headed. Forget about startups I am only waiting for news to come out of illegal exchanges operating in one of the major cities in India. I am sure those who are still trading have either found a way to cash without paying any tax or are making huge profits that the 30% slab doesn't matter to them.

I noticed the trading volume on the Wazirx exchange site, it's not as usual, the sharp decline at first I didn't think this was because of the tax, after I saw this thread, there's also the truth of the tax effect.

I think this will have a bad impact on the crypto community in India regarding taxes, but we'll see what happens next.

Eventually, all centralized Indian exchanges will see a decline in volume in the coming days. Indian crypto community is now slowly moving to DEX and are using non-KYC-based P2P exchange for the crypto transaction. That is why senior members on the Indian board have been always preaching to avoid KYC. The government of India needs to understand that there are many ways to bypass the law and they need to rethink the 30% tax.

More to come, traders would be dead once 1% tds comes to effect.

Won't be a big loss to the government, innovative and talented people aren't useful to the ruling party, unemployed idiots who are willing to engage in riots are their true assets.